Letter to USFA Members of Congress

[FenzerX]

This morning I received the following email:

Dear Members of Congress,

As Stacey Johnson and Steve Sobel have had extensive dealings with the USOC for many years and on many levels, they were asked to prepare a report for the Board of Directors on the possible intervention of the USOC in USFA matters. Because of the recent article that appeared in a national daily publication, it was felt that the report and the article needed to be distributed prior to the Board meeting and to a wider audience. Attached is their report and a link to the USAToday article. I apologize to those who may have already received this email.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olymp...handball_x.htm

Sincerely,

Linda Merritt
Secretary USFA

The linked article mentions that handball was recently decertified, and that vollyball is under investigation. Does anyone know more details about their circumstances and how they compare to the USFA's - more specifically, what constitutes "dysfunctional?"

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by FenzerX

This morning I received the following email:


The linked article mentions that handball was recently decertified, and that vollyball is under investigation. Does anyone know more details about their circumstances and how they compare to the USFA's - more specifically, what constitutes "dysfunctional?"

Discussed previously elsewhere, but here's the short version.

Team Handball was apparently VERY disfunctional. They ran out of money (to the point of having < $10 in their bank account). Additionally they were having a fairly vicious fight within their leadership. They had a new president come in in 2004. Subsequently there were a series of By-Laws changes made -- possibly in a manner that contravened their existing By-Laws, depending on which side of the argument you followed. The head of their Athlete's Group demanded the resignation of the president, whereupon the president informed the Board that, as per the newly enacted rules in the modified By-Laws, their services were no longer required. The Board, ignoring the President's declaration that they were no longer in office impeached him. At this point the USOC stepped in and shut down everyone, taking over direct control.

Volleyball is a completely different story. As best I can tell there are no financial difficulties in US Volleyball. The issue there is that volleyball historically has been administratively dominated by the indoor game, while the beach game is relatively new to the Games, and mostly was funded by the nice weekly paychecks that tournament players could earn. In recent years the sponsorship money has dried up, and only the top few players make gobs of cash. Because of this the beach players are starting to look to the Olympic movement for funding and support. With an NGB that's almost completely focus in another direction there are apparently some bad feelings and issues there. This is a move by the beach players to either have US Volleyball decertified and then replaced, or restrucutred in such a way that the beach players have equal say to the indoor players.

Neither of these compares particularly closely to the situation with the USFA, although US Volleyball -- as an internal political matter that has risen to the USOC level, and without any financial problems -- isn't too far off.

There are several other NGBs that have similarly had decertification processes relatively recently (TKD, Modern Pentathlon, others?). I believe that all of these also featured major financial problems.

-B

[dsapery]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Team Handball was apparently VERY disfunctional. They ran out of money (to the point of having < $10 in their bank account). Additionally they were having a fairly vicious fight within their leadership. They had a new president come in in 2004.

Although you have the facts correct, you have the cause and effect reversed.

Handball ran out of money because the USOC froze their funding. The USOC froze their funding because they were unable to govern themselves.

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by dsapery

Although you have the facts correct, you have the cause and effect reversed.

Handball ran out of money because the USOC froze their funding. The USOC froze their funding because they were unable to govern themselves.

This is quite right.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by dsapery

Although you have the facts correct, you have the cause and effect reversed.

Handball ran out of money because the USOC froze their funding. The USOC froze their funding because they were unable to govern themselves.

The money that was frozen was an advance on money that hadn't yet come due. The USOC originally agreed to advance the date of the payment, then froze the payment when they learned that Team Handball was out of money completely and didn't look like they could continue to meet their commitments. Team Handball owes the USOC $14-15,000 in past monies that were not properly spent.

At least from my recollection of what I read.

They were out of money before the funding was frozen. That said, for the past several years nearly 100% of their funding was USOC money.

-B

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by FenzerX

This morning I received the following email:
The linked article mentions that handball was recently decertified, and that vollyball is under investigation. Does anyone know more details about their circumstances and how they compare to the USFA's - more specifically, what constitutes "dysfunctional?"

As was noted by ouiyt there is a very long and lively discussion of this issue. The pdf you inserted basically raises no new issues which have not been discussed and cussed at length. The USFA is not dysfunctional. It is having a petition presented to it in accordance with its bylaws. More importantly the USFA is financially solvent and not dependent upon the USOC - according to what we've learned. In fact someone made the point that the USOC is not even the major source of funding, fencers are. And so fencing will not go away even if the USOC does its worst. That said, of course we don't wish to give to great an offense to the USOC. But this is an internal matter within the USFA and in the truest sense of the phrase democracy in action.